some disks we hold dear...
(in random order, with random comments - (a)=adrian, (d)=david, (m)=marcella)
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the bees / sunshine hit me
howie b / music for babies (1996)
fsol / isdn (1995)
radiohead - ok computer

RADIOHEAD / amnesiac (2000)/ ok computer (1997)



(ok computer) apparently, this album was recorded 3 times in full before the band was happy with it.  they got it right.  from the opening strains of airbag to the final fade of the tourist, there is not a single bad sound or misplaced noise.  a work of true magnitude, it also has some great individual tracks - all the singles are wonderful, and 'no surprises' is one of my favourite songs of all time (and another video clip definitely worth seeing).  anything by radiohead is worth hearing, but this is a fine introduction to what they do. (a)

brian eno / music for airports
beastie boys / check ya head (1992)
portishead / dummy –
billy bragg and wilco / mermaid avenue (1998)
beck / odelay (1996)

blur-13


blur / blur (1996) / 13(1999)




(13)when i first heard this album, i didn't really like it.   then i listened to it a few more times, and i still thought it was just o.k..   now, a few years later, it ranks up there with my favourites of all time.   it is a gloriously sprawling mess with some of the greatest melodies ever.   and the melancholy (there's that word again) seeps through everything, even the relative upbeatness of coffee and tv (track down the video for that if you can).   which makes tracks like tender, caramel and, most significantly, no distance left to run, some of the saddest songs ever sung.  william orbit's production, which i once accused of being unfocused and intrusive, is, i now think, just brilliant - there are so many noises flying everywhere, so many changes in timbre, just so much going on.   just make sure you listen to it a lot of times to let it sink in fully (and use headphones as much as possible).  (a)

massive attack / blue lines


tricky - nearly god






tricky / maxinequaye (1995)/ nearly god (1996)
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bad ii the globe


big audio dynamite ii / the globe (1991)



big audio dynamite is often maligned and was (is) always just on the outside of critical acclaim.  however, they were one of the first groups to really bring dance music into the mainstream in a big way, particularly for an australian audience.  the mix of rock and dance helped greatly - i saw them at the old selina's in sydney, and the rock pigs in the crowd (which was most of the crowd) spent a good 45 minutes abusing the warm-up dj because he was spinning house records.  this album was really the crossover one.  a remake of kool-aid, which was released the previous year (and has a great extended version of rush), it had all the real hits and some truly great songs.  and any singer who can be so out of tune yet still make a melody sound sweet has got to be a hero of mine. (a)


wilco / yankee hotel foxtrot (2002)

itch-e kitch-e koo


itch-e + scratch-e / itch-e kitch-e koo (1993)



i first heard itch-e + scratch-e on an australian electronic compilation called 'high' back when electronic music was not really recognised in australia.  the track 'transit' was the highlight (and i'm sure the chemical brothers stole the distortion sample for 'setting sun' years later).  knowing little else about them, i finally got this album a year or so later.  it was one of the first albums i had which my mother hated (she was always quite good with putting up with 'teenager music', but the constant boom boom drove her over the edge).  it is wonderfully constructed as an album, with a 10 second gap in the middle to give you a break.  this was the first fully electronic album which i loved and still inspires to this day. (a)

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beatles white album


the beatles /the beatles (1968)



'the white album'.  this album really should be the blueprint for every album made.  producer george martin said it would've been a great single album - i think it is the greatest double album ever.  so many styles are covered, yet they all hang together somehow.  helter skelter to mother nature's sun to rocky raccoon to why don't we do it in the road to while my guitar gently weeps.   if every band could be this wildly creative, especially in these days of 74+ minutes of cd space, there wouldn't be so much genre-ghettoised generica floating around.   all the beatles albums are classics, this is the best.(a)

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john lennon - plastic ono band


john lennon / plasic ono band.(1970)



the original punks always claimed they were making raw, real music for the first time.  they'd obviously never heard this album.  without even the pretention of distortion and attitude, this is as raw and primal as western pop music gets.  never using more than drums (played wonderfully, as always, by ringo), bass and either guitar or piano to back the vocals, it is producer phil spector's most uncharacteristic work as well.  the album is continually melancholy.  the magnitude of the penultimate track, 'god', is possibly lost on an audience where the beatles are not the centre of the universe but, combined with the following 'my mummy's dead', make for possibly the saddest moments ever put to disc.(a)


bjork - vespertine

bjork - vespertine
(2001)




with every release, bjork's music tends to slip further and further away from the mainstream, and further into uncharted brilliance.  her 2005 album, 'medulla', created entirely with human voices, is astounding.  but that is a sort of dead end, in that any artist that follows her there can only be compared as an inferior bjork.  'vespertine', from 2001,  leaves open the chances for other artists (such as ourselves) to take inspiration and do something with it.  custom-made music boxes dance with bjork's own incredible electronic and acoustic production.  melodies tumble over each other in (dis)harmonic waves.  and the swan dress is awesome, no matter what women's glossy gossip magazines had to say about it.(a)



midnight oil - 10 to 1





midnight oil /10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 (1982)


pink floyd - meddle


Pink Floyd / meddle (1971)





primal scream - screamadelica





primal scream /screamadelica (1991)

this album is one of the pillars of modern music, well, for me anyway.  beats, melodies, psychedaelia for the post-baby boomer.  from the sublime cover of the 13th floor elevators' 'slip inside this house' to jah wobble's exquisite dub bass in the 'higher than the sun' symphony, it's eclectic and never faulters.  an album that demonstrates how to honour your influences yet still transcend them.(a)

the clash - london calling


the clash / london calling(1980)



the early 80s were a good period for the clash.  this was a double album from 1980.  a year later came the triple album set of 'sandinista' which is almost as good as this.  i discovered the clash as a 16 year old well after they'd broken up, but even then they sounded fresher than most of what was played on the radio at the time.  their punk origins had flowered into a technicolour of dub, caustic pop, rockabilly and, well, punk.  the production is what most blew me away - there's minute sounds everywhere making every listen a game, the drums are never content to just hold a beat - they are as melodic as any instrument on the album, and there is space in every arrangement for some oddball instrument or other sound to breathe.


cornershop - when i was born for the 17th time


cornershop / when i was born for the 17th time  (1997)


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ride - nowhere


ride / nowhere (1990)




de la soul - 3 feet high


de la soul / 3 feet high and rising (1989)



whenever i start to worry about the limitations of my music making machines, i always think of this album.  recorded with only an early akai (mono) sampler, a turntable, drum machine and a whole lot of creativity.  would the album have been any better with more sophisticated equipment?  the day i bought this, i had a gift voucher and i wandered around trying to decide between this (my first ever hip-hop/non rock album) and sonic youth's 'goo'.  while i do like that album too, it's interesting to ponder where my musical tangents may have gone had i bought that instead of this.  as it is, this album ushered in a huge shift (or perhaps broadening is a better term) in my musical tastes and future pursuits.(a)



sidewinder - tangerine



sidewinder / tangerine (1997)


in my opinion, this is the last great rock album ever made.  there's been other good rock things released since, but these are generally pastiches of historical rock moments.  this album actually took rock to new places sonically and never rested on its influences.  like goldie producing the jefferson airplane playing lost kinks demos.  they disbanded a little while after this album without ever really breaking out of the australian underground, but i think they should have been one of the bands that mattered. (a)


deep child - hymns from babylon

deep child / hymns from babylon (2000)



i first heard deepchild's music live in around 1996/97 and waited eagerly for years for his debut album.  bouncing glitches and truly broken breakbeats underpinned by the highest  of dub production aesthetics made this quite mesmerising.  my eldest daughter was born about 9 months after the release of this album.  as a baby, whenever she couldn't get to sleep, i played this album loudly and she would be invariably soothed.(a)


the stone roses


the stone roses / the stone roses (1989)



possibly the single most important album in my musical upbringing.  at a time when i loved 60s pop, but couldn't find a contemporary equivalent to call my own, i heard fool's gold on the radio.  was that wah wah guitar, and an actual song, with a dance beat!!??  my harsh and deeply held prejudice against dance music disappeared almost instantly.  when i found the album, it had the songs, the fashion, the guitar, the harmonies, the cool - everything i loved but all brand new.  5 years later, seeing them on their only visit to australia, the highlight was undoubtedly 'made of stone', possibly the most perfect live pop moment i have ever experienced live.(a)


bob dylan - oh mercy


bob dylan / oh mercy (1989)
 


yeah,  bob dylan supposedly hit his peak in the 60s, and i love all that, too, but this seems to do him so much more justice.  the lyrics actually make sense and daniel lanois' production is just spot on.  dylan's voice sounds like it is resonating  with wisdom from before the beginning of the universe, his harmonica, for possibly the only time in his career, sounds warm and haunting, not piercing and repellant.  and it is one of the few 'christian' albums ever that i can actually stand listening to.(a)

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orange chrome


5000 fingers of doctor t  / orange chrome (1997)

 

whilst later work by the group is very uptempo,  this, their 2nd album, is a far different proposition. this hangs together as a wonderful whole.   almost beatless, many sounds feel like they were recorded inside the hull of a submerged ship somewhere in the ocean.  it's a digital album which sounds incredibly organic, the reverb consumes the ears, the whole thing is ambient but never in danger of becoming wallpaper.  the 5000 fingers are inspirational in their diversity and this album is truly wonderful. (a)


u2 - achtung baby


u2 / achtung baby (1991)





flaming lips - the soft bulletin
the flaming lips / the soft bulletin (1999) / yoshimi battles the pink robots (2003)




underground lovers - leaves me blind


underground lovers / leaves me blind (1992)


from impending doom of the opening chord of 'eastside stories' to the closing calm of 'whisper me nothing' this album is all good.  the album veers through dub, shoegazer guitar maelstroms, low-fi electronica and pure white noise.  insistent grooves are never far off either, and the highlight for me is where most of these attributes blur together in the double play of 'your eyes' followed by 'ladies choice'.  the band also was the first to really open my eyes to the possibilities of live visuals which (in the days before data projectors as commonly owned objects) they created with immaculate multiple projector slideshows.  a truly great creative entity.(a)


gerling - children of telapathic experiences

gerling / children of telepathic experiences (1998)



not many groups make truly eclectic music.  however, the jump from 'ghost patrol' and 'death to the apple gerls' to 'enter, space capsule'(and they're just the 'marketable' singles) is nothing short of remarkable.  that every style they rip off (and they've done lots more, too, since then) is pulled off with finesse, while still sounding like gerling, is something i find very inspiring.(a)


underworld - 2nd toughest in the infants


underworld / 2nd toughest in the infants (1996)



probably the biggest specific influence in the formative stages of telafonica, underworld haven't released a bad album since their mk ii incarnation in the early 90s.  always the complete package - packaging design still often mimics the mid 90s tomato aesthetic 10 years later, and the music hasn't dated a second.  underworld are an album band, one of the first electronic acts to be successfully so.  this album ebbs and flows, tracks build and disintegrate slowly and, if you bought the australian edition, you got a bonus disc which had the full versions of born slippy.nuxx and rez.  what more could you want from any album?(a)


groovski / groovski (2002)

lipstick - little love


lipstick / little love (2004)



it's only an e.p., but lipstick haven't released an album yet, and this has had a big influence on telafonica.  the direct influence on a number of the tracks on telafonica's 'morpheme' sounds reasonably obvious.  but the amount of contrast, momentum and variety created with a minimal pallette in each track is astounding.  krystal's melodies float along and subliminally drill their way into your head until you catch yourself humming them hours later.  the clicks and glitches make their own melodies, pushing the limits of house music to deepest space.(a)


gusgus - polydistortion





gusgus /polydistortion (1997)
if only for the presence of 'is jesus your pal?' this album would be brilliant.  one voice, one 808 and some haunting sound fx.  however, there's so much more.  each track is generally based around the simplest of loops which are then filtered and twisted relentlessly, underpinning beautiful melodies from a whole host of different voices.  anything bu gusgus gets my recommendation, but this is probably my favourite.(a)

aphex twin / selected ambient works
dj shadow / entroducing

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chemical brothers surrender
the chemical brothers /
... dig your own hole (1997)/ surrender (1999)


(surrender) is there much left to say about the chemical brothers?   they singlehandedly created a new genre (though, if you replaced the acid squelches with chuck d's voice, their first 2 albums sound a lot like early 90s public enemy), took live electronica to the masses and looked like complete dweebs at the same time.   they simply know how to do very obvious things with more finesse than anyone else, meaning it all comes off sounding uncliched, even when it is .  surrender saves the big beats for just a few cuts and adds great depth in the process.  and the cover artwork is great.(a)

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